1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to steam ovens and, more particularly, to a steam oven to selectively heat food in desired directions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, steam ovens are cooking apparatuses that cook food by generating steam and discharging the steam onto the food.
Conventional steam ovens include a cabinet to define a cooking cavity therein, a steam generator to supply steam into the cooking cavity, and a steam feed pipe to guide and feed the steam generated from the steam generator to a lower portion of the cooking cavity so as to discharge the steam into the cooking cavity from the lower portion of the cooking cavity.
Accordingly, the steam, generated by the steam generator and passing through the steam feed pipe, is discharged from the lower portion of the cooking cavity to a rack installed in the cooking cavity, so that food placed on the rack is cooked by heat of the steam discharged into the cooking cavity.
The above-mentioned conventional steam ovens are advantageous in that the food is evenly cooked, but are problematic in that the conventional steam ovens cannot effectively cook various kinds of foods because the steam ovens do not have any means to selectively cook the food in desired directions.
Furthermore, in case that a plurality of racks are sequentially provided in a multi-rack arrangement in the cooking cavity, because the steam discharged from the lower portion of the cooking cavity is mainly discharged to a rack provided at a lower portion in the cooking cavity, the conventional steam ovens may not evenly cook foods that are placed on the upper and lower racks provided at upper and lower portions in the cooking cavity.